Woman invites guest 'to eat partner'

After stabbing her boyfriend 26 times, a NSW Central Coast woman used her phone to send a message to another man, saying she wanted to eat her partner's corpse, writing: "I think he tastes good."

On Monday, Tamie Melehan, 29, pleaded not guilty in the NSW Supreme Court to charges of murder by reason of mental illness, but did confess to having murdered her boyfriend.

Her partner of three months, David Vaughan, 30, was reportedly stabbed four times in his abdomen, six times in his chest and 16 times in his neck during the frantic knife attack in his girlfriend’s apartment on December 25, 2008.

After an autopsy it was concluded that the man's jugular veins had been sliced open in two places on his neck and the "rapidly fatal" wounds had been the cause of his death.

In 2002, Melehan was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and has an extensive history of mental illness, the court was told.

According to Michael O’Brien, the prosecutor in the court, Melehan sent another man a string of text messages telling him that she missed him and inviting him over to her home to feed on her boyfriend's body, referring to it as "delicate meat."

Prosecuters say the following text messages were sent:

"Oi, can I eat this fella?"

"I think he tastes good ... there's enough to go around if you want to join in - no joke, delicate meat ..."

"Dear me, need help to get rid of the body."

A short time later she is accused of calling her mom to ask. Prosecutors allege she asked if her mom if she could "come over and get him before I slit his throat?"

Loretta Watts, Melehan's mother, rushed to her daughter's apartment, finding the deceased Vaughan in the shower with blood bubbling from a gash in his neck.

Justice Monika Schmidt was told by Mr O’Brien that sufficient psychiatric evidence had been gathered to back-up allegations that Melehan was acting in "a delusional way" and was afflicted with "an acute exacerbation of her chronic mental illness" when the attack occurred.

The prosecutor also said "The crown submits on the evidence that is before your honour, your honour would make a finding that the accused is not guilty of the offence within the grounds of mental illness."